Monday, January 31, 2011

Das Auto




Here are pictures of my new car - my first automobile.
Das Auto. The Car. Mine!

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Employees First, Customers Second - Book Review



I chose to read this book which I first noticed in the "Management" section of the airport bookstore. I usually stay away from the MBA type books because, as all true scientists, I find it a little too esoteric for my taste. But the title intrigued me because conventional MBA philosophy advocates the opposite; "customer is king" is the mantra that is sold under different labels. It seemed a little contrary to my usual bias and I was curious to see what was inside.

Vineet Nayar, the author, took charge as CEO of HCL Technologies in 2005, at a time when the company was doing quite well in its stable position among the major IT rivals. Five years later, the company is one of the fastest growing companies which tripled its revenues, halved its attrition rate and grew its customer-base five-fold. All this in a period marked by one of the most severe recessions in recent history. The book provides the blueprint for this transformation.

In retrospect, a clear formula emerged for this radical transformation which included phases such as Mirror, Mirror; Trust through transparency; Inverting the pyramid and Recasting the role of the CEO. But the journey to transform a large, profitable company into a dynamic, forward-looking organization required a lot of courage and faith in its employees. Nayar shows through his simple narration, how it is possible to come up with totally new strategies that are focused on employees who are in the so-called "value-zone", the critical interface with clients.

With several initiatives with catchy titles such as Smart Service Desk, U&I,employee first councils and a revolutionary way of implementing 360 degree feedback, change of a unprecedented magnitude was enabled in a company with 55000 employees. With employees fully engaged and trusting, it is no wonder that HCLT is hurtling towards even greater heights.

Personally, it took me while to complete this book, but I also did not want to read it only half-way. As a former disgruntled employee of large corporations where I felt the greatest threat was in disengagement, the first symptom of further failure, I knew how little the management cares or can do about this. This book points to one option of how turning the entire management philosophy upside down, can work wonders.

For all you cynical workers and managers, here is book that shows another way.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

The Counsel of Strangers - Book Review



As the title suggests, this is a novel about strangers, 6 strangers of all ages, occupations and social class, who happen to meet at a wedding. It is not so much a novel as a collection of six short stories that merge one fateful night. The night where wedding revelry is only a backdrop to these guests who find themselves reluctant invitees to the pomp and show. Instead these characters spend the evening in each others company, divulging their past lives and current predicaments.

On the surface, the characters appear unique and quite different from each other. Wing Commander Brahme, a retired Army Officer, Kartik, the young teenage boy, Anandi-Mohini, a single woman with a past, Sahil, the news reporter, Sajani the nurse and Professor Natrajan. Their stories cover different aspects of the human condition, from dealing with late-life romance, to lack thereof, from being alone to being watched continuously, seeking meaning to seeking affection. But there are common threads that repeat, the USA connection for three of the 6 characters, the Mumbai connection for another three.

Dange does a fantastic job of getting the thoughts of the aging and elderly just right but falters with the first person narration of the little boy who resents being under the microscope of his family, afraid to repeat the delinquency of their older child. Nurse Sajani's voice is much more believable as a woman who has spent her years caring for other bodies, but craves to be free from her duties as she ages alone. The lines spoken by the educated elite ring true and is the voice that the author seems most comfortable with, whether it is the moral superiority expressed by the NRIs settled in the US or the intellectual snobbery of Professor Natrajan who uses it as a shield to distance herself from her only son.

The stories are laced with wry humor and true-to-life situations. I loved the first chapter about Wing Commander Brahme and identified with Anandi-Mohini's theories about marriage. The writing is liberally sprinkled with quotes from Ezra Pound and lyrics of well-known Bollywood songs. It is a light and engaging read, particularly a good book to while away the time in airports and train journeys.

The technique of telling many different stories in first person narration as chapters in a novel is not new one, it has been successfully used by other Indian authors such as Anita Nair in Ladies Coupe and more recently by Chitra Banerjee in One Amazing Thing. But this is one novel where the oft-repeated lines from Bollywood movies also undermine the story by the obvious effort and insistence on trying to tie things up nicely at the end.

The novels strength is in its life-like characters but they turn into mere caricatures as they sprint to the anticipated happy ending.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Devotion to music

As I was immersed in reading "The Music Room", the legendary singer of the Kirana gharana, Pandit Bhimsen Joshi, lay in the ICU in a hospital in Pune, battling for life. News of the death of this Bharat Ratna, appeared in the newspapers yesterday, along with praise for his musical genius. Obituaries spoke good things about all he had accomplished in the 88 years, almost all of them devoted to his passion for music, a passion that was discerned at an early age.

The young Bhimsen ran away from home to find his guru, Ustad Abdul Karim Khan, the maestro of the Kirana gharana. He studied in the strict confines of the guru-shishya tradition but always strived to enrich the tradition by bringing in innovation and the best of other repertoires. One article quoted Bhimsen Joshi's remark "What one learns from one's guru has to be supplemented by individual genius or else one will not have anything worthwhile to say. In fact, a good disciple should not be a second rate imitator but a first rate improvement of his teacher."

When I watch some of the talent shows on TV, the whole charade seems meaningless, as each aspiring singer tries to imitate the style and sensibility of a recorded and played innumerable times until the original flavor has become a package that can be swallowed. Imitation is the best for form of not just flattery but is also the ticket to fame and its rewards.

It is difficult to imagine the context of a lifetime of complete education from a guru in these times where quick recipes for instant success is what sells. Whether it is talented youngsters with ambitious parents or audiences with short attention span, neither the student or teacher has what it takes to either seek or be guided towards developing individual from a holistic perspective. Talent may be God-given, but what the person does with this gift is surely molded by those who come into his life to bring balance and guide him towards wisdom.

Let us take a moment to reflect on the passing on of a great musician and hope for seeing such greatness in every generation.

The Music Room - Book Review



The cover is stark, predominantly black with just a view of the back of a woman with a long braid, her right hand holding a tanpura. The long dark braid almost touches the floor where she sits, wearing a classic white sari. The blurb says "Fantastic! A must for every musician and music lover! Pandit Ravi Shankar". Priyanka (of Evening Hour bookstore) recommended the book to me and I will be forever grateful to her for bringing this into my life.

The simplicity of the cover carries into each page of this memoir, written by Namita Devidayal, a journalist based in Mumbai. The book takes us through her story, a young child encouraged by her mother to learn Hindustani classical music from an exponent of the famous Jaipur gharana. Namita takes us through the intricacies of Indian classical music in a simple story-teller fashion, weaving stories of prominent singers of the last 100 years into the origins of this stream of music, including the legendary Tansen.

Namita's teacher is Dhondutai Kulkarni, a woman whose life has been dedicated to her true calling, a classical singer, who sings not just for fame and glory but for that spiritual connection with the almighty, the shortcut that gifted musicians have to God with their "bhakti". The book is not just Namita's or Dhondutai's story but also of the various gurus who generously gave of their knowledge to their students, in an era where records and royalties did not exist. The power of music to transcend ordinary barriers of religion, class and other social mores are beautifully depicted through the interactions between the Khansahibs, Kesarbai and Dhondutai's own decision (encouraged by her father) to stay single and single-mindedly pursue her music instead of serving "Two masters - man and music."

For Mumbaikars, this book is a special treat as it describes Mumbai through the eyes of two generations; a big city, but one which was an incubator for talented musicians, where benefactors who were true art connoisseurs, provided a platform for genuinely talented artistes. The author brings to life this maximum city in a loving narrative with beautiful descriptions of Shivaji Park,Birla Matoshree Hall and the seedy neighborhood of Kennedy Bridge where the books begins.

As with great writing, all the stories are told in an open observational style, there is no preaching, no judging. It is almost a non-memoir because the author is not the star but just a narrator, of the present which is a logical continuation of the past. Namita discontinues her musical education as she moves to Princeton for college. But her connection with her guru resumes at a later time and evolves as Namita herself matures. The last few pages of the journey to the musical origins of Dhondutai's life in Kolhapur where teacher and student sing together in the Mahalakshmi temple are specially poignant.

My favorite parts of the book were the details of the origins of Hindustani music, the vignettes about famous artistes and of course, the nuances of the ragas. Many anecdotes of the power of music to directly take mere human beings out of the mundane world into the spiritual realm are intricately woven into the pages. At the same time, the petty competition among musicians and the stigma associated with women who performed on stage just a few decades ago are faithfully rendered.

I wondered about the title of the book, the significance of which does not come until much later into the narrative. It is a room where Dhondutai keeps her modest cassette player and a selection of recordings of her concerts. Dhondutai's life symbolizes what faith, commitment, and genuine talent that finds nurturing support can achieve even from a modest family origin. She may not have found the fame that Kesarbai did but she has superbly advanced the reputation of the Jaipur gharana by imparting her knowledge to her student Namita who has helped the flame burn brighter by bringing it to not just music-lovers but to book-lovers as well.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Something New

It is three months since I moved into my new home. Most things are in place. Of course there are still teething troubles, inevitable side-effects of moving into a brand new apartment. But life goes on.

I know where to buy bread and vegetables locally. But I still find myself gravitating back to the old neighborhood for many things - tailor, library, watch repair shop. It is a little inconvenient, to drive 8 kilometers into a congested neighborhood just for the ease that familiarity brings. Why do we crave the known even though we suspect that something right around the corner may bring unexpected surprises?

In the spirit of supporting local businesses, I decided to walk into the new tailoring shop a few meters down the road. It was a large, new, well-lit shop that offered a choice of ready to wear ladies clothes along with tailoring services. The lady at the counter seemed friendly and we got talking as she took my measurements. She and her friend, software engineers by occupation, decided to give up perfectly lucrative careers to start this business. They wanted to spend more time with family and wanted to try something new which offered more flexibility. But these were the first few months of operation and they were working 7 days a week. Not having reached break-even point yet, she wondered why they had given up assured salaries for the up and downs of entrepreneurship.

I spoke a few words about my choice to quit a corporate job to begin something new and tried to encourage her. It is a tough road and venturing into a new endeavor is the hard. But there are moments of satisfaction as you cross your milestones that cannot be experienced while sitting in the comfort of an air-conditioned office and working for someone else.

It is inspiring to find people who take the untrodden paths. May their tribe increase.

Monday, January 17, 2011

Golconda High School - Movie Review

It was indeed a first for me, many firsts rolled into one - watching a Telugu movie based on an English novel that I had read, by an author who is a friend. Now that I have that disclaimer out of the way, let me tell you about the movie. For those interested in the book review, please check out the link at the bottom of this post.

"Golconda High School" is the story of the cricket team of the eponymous school, a team that needs to win, not just for the glory, but for the right to retain the vast school grounds, which have been earmarked by a greedy trustee for building a new coaching center. The movie tells the relatively straightforward story of how Sampath, an alumni of the school who is invited by the principal and given the lofty task of winning the inter-school championship, sets about creating a team of champions from a group of lackluster boys.

The movie is refreshing in its elegant approach to storytelling.No gimmicks, no slapstick comedy track, no distracting item numbers. All the actors are firmly grounded and play their part with conviction. The boys are particularly endearing in their everyday mannerisms and good-natured ribbing as they gather for practice. As a resident of Hyderabad, it was a pleasure to see a real school with a large playground (a rarity these days)against the majestic backdrop of the historic icons that casually grace the city. The songs are minimal and come just at the right moments.

I am totally unqualified to judge whether the cricket scenes were authentic but considering the fact that the author of the novel "The Men Within", Harimohan Paruvu was present in several of the cricket scenes, was reassuring.

Golconda High School may not be another Chak De or Lagaan, but it is definitely a contemporary tale set in modern India that makes its point, albeit subtly. So be a dreamer, plan and work hard for the greater goal. GO GHS!!

http://drranjani.blogspot.com/2010/04/book-review-men-within.html

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Defining success

Last week I found myself watching TV in the morning - something I rarely do. I happened to watch an interview on Doordarshan where an expert on Vedanta talking about personal excellence. Success is what anticipated as a result of pursuing excellence. And of course, the success is measured in material terms.

I want to share a quote by Viktor Frankl, which appealed to me.

"Success is an unintended side effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself."

Sometime I am confused while setting goals or figuring out if I should make commitments that take up time but are not financially rewarding. All actions cannot advance material gains but when you do something for a higher purpose, the actions are great leaps that increase your value, not in terms of money but in self-worth.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

New Year ahead

Once again its January, a new year, a new decade and another opportunity to start over from wherever you are.

A time for resolutions, promises - to others, to self, and a time to set goals.

When things are not going well, it is logical (and easy) to use this opportunity to visualize a new way forward. It's when things are going well that it is harder to set a radically new trajectory. I guess in a way, it is a good problem to have; doing well, and trying to set a higher standard for the coming year.

I hope to set expectations for work, for holidays and for better use of my time for things I truly love to do - read, write, travel. Looking for a formula to be happy.

I read somewhere that "the phrase pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase, if you pursue happiness, you will never find it." (C.P Snow)

Perhaps it is better to remember this New Year email message that said "There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way."

Sunday, January 9, 2011

998 pieces - a picture



As requested, here is a picture of the San Francisco puzzle that is now framed.

A thousand words





Rishi Valley pictures